Pancreatic cancer is the fourth in importance, with very poor prognosis. This is mainly due to the difficulty to detect it early, when metastasis (this property that cancer cells acquire and allow them to invade other sites and organs) has not started. This metastatic process is particularly aggressive in pancreatic cancer. Moreover, as pancreatic cancer progresses, patients often develop cachexia, a syndrome causing different symptoms such as weight loss of over 10%. In recent years, our team collected a blood/urine bank from cancer patients which will allow us to identify early markers of pancreatic cancer. We will first study a protein named PTP-PEST, which we would block to decrease metastases. This targeted approach will be complemented by new profiling technologies that will allow us to identify molecules altered in pancreatic cancer. The discovery of specific markers of pancreatic cancer at different stages of disease progression will allow clinicians to detect the cancer earlier, helping clinician to prevent cachexia, thus improving the survival of patients.

This grant is funded by the Rob Lutterman Memorial Fund.